Oxford University students vote to remove the Queen

The title of the thread is misleading, as are some of the headlines in the media. It was the portrait they voted to remove, and it was only 173 post- graduates out of the 24,000 students in Oxford. They had bought that print in 2013 and now wished to take it down. That was their decision to make.

See post from growstuff Tue 08-Jun-21 23:19:57 Message from Dinah Rose, President of Magdalen College

I am sure some of them in the future will trot along to Buck
House to get their honours bestowed

What a drama over typical student behaviour. If it wasn’t taking down a portrait of the Queen, it would have been something else. If that’s what Oxford students need to make them feel good about themselves, let them have their 5 minutes of fame.

MaizieD

Grammaretto

Is there anyone in history we can be really proud of? do tell....

The Slave Trade abolitionists; the movers of the Factory Acts, Florence Nightingale, the Suffragettes and Suffragists, the government that implemented the NHS...

All those people who acted to improve the lives of our citizens...

Yes, there are some exceptions. But our Imperialism... not quite so admirable...

All ancestors of those people keep quiet about it though, don't they ime? They did and continue to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do

Why would anyone want a picture of the Queen on their walls anyway? Their room, their choice. Why the fuss?

Grammaretto

*MaizieD * It's a very simplified version of people. Nobody is wholly good or wholly bad. This is what I believe.

I'm sure even those holy abolitionists or Mother Teresa had their faults.
I have no objections to taking down that portrait of the Queen but I wonder what they will do with it! Donate it to a charity of their choice?

So we can't be proud of what they achieved for the less privileged members of their society?

I didn't at any time say they were without fault. Your question was asking if there was anyone in our history to be proud of.

Sorry that I seem to have missed the bit where they had to be spotless. too..

Chewbacca

Regrettably not growstuff, she was called Sybil.

Did you have a democratic vote about taking the photo down?

Regrettably not growstuff, she was called Sybil.

... or even Lilibet?

Chewbacca

I've just taken down a photo of my cat. It hung in the downstairs loo for over 10 years. It hasn't been reported in the news. Yet.

Any chance you can be spun as "woke" and anti-establishment? Was your cat called Churchill or Victoria?

Grammaretto

*MaizieD * It's a very simplified version of people. Nobody is wholly good or wholly bad. This is what I believe.

I'm sure even those holy abolitionists or Mother Teresa had their faults.
I have no objections to taking down that portrait of the Queen but I wonder what they will do with it! Donate it to a charity of their choice?

Read what Dinah Rose wrote. It will be safely stored.

I've just taken down a photo of my cat. It hung in the downstairs loo for over 10 years. It hasn't been reported in the news. Yet.

MaizieD It's a very simplified version of people. Nobody is wholly good or wholly bad. This is what I believe.

I'm sure even those holy abolitionists or Mother Teresa had their faults.
I have no objections to taking down that portrait of the Queen but I wonder what they will do with it! Donate it to a charity of their choice?

Message from Dinah Rose, President of Magdalen College:

Here are some facts about Magdalen College and HM the Queen.
The Middle Common Room is an organisation of graduate students. They don't represent the College.
A few years ago, in about 2013, they bought a print of a photo of the Queen to decorate their common room.

They recently voted to take it down.
Both of these decisions are their own to take, not the College's.
Magdalen strongly supports free speech and political debate, and the MCR'S right to autonomy.

Maybe they'll vote to put it up again, maybe they won't.
Meanwhile, the photo will be safely stored.

Being a student is about more than studying. It's about exploring and debating ideas. It's sometimes about provoking the older generation.
Looks like that isn’t so hard to do these days.

One of my sons went to Oxford, a different college though. We visited him often and went to the dining room for dinner once with him. It was all very traditional as you might expect, but I don’t remember seeing a picture of the Queen anywhere. Not in the old buildings, nor the new ones, nor where his graduation took place. I may be wrong, maybe there are pictures, but I don’t remember any. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention

Who can blame them? Hopefully we’ll soon see an end to all this monarchy nonsense.

True, MaizieD, but the reference was to recent colonial history.

Thank goodness the founder of Magdalen died well before England got involved in the slave trade!

Grammaretto

Is there anyone in history we can be really proud of? do tell....

The Slave Trade abolitionists; the movers of the Factory Acts, Florence Nightingale, the Suffragettes and Suffragists, the government that implemented the NHS...

All those people who acted to improve the lives of our citizens...

Yes, there are some exceptions. But our Imperialism... not quite so admirable...

grumppa

According to one newspaper, the portrait only went up in 2013. I certainly don’t remember one when I was there, in the company of a number of Rhodes Scholars incidentally, in the dim and distant past. The quoted reason, that the Queen represents recent colonial history, seems odd, given that nearly all our colonies have been disposed of during her reign.

The ‘electorate’ would have been just the MCR members.

The colonies might have been disposed of, but their history wasn't, grumppa.

l can see that the Rhodes scholarship might be problematic for some to accept, but you could view it as a reparation...

I

Talullah

MaizieD, I am not saying he SHOULD stay. However if you follow the news you will see that Rhodes is staying.

I know that Rhodes is staying. It's just that you sounded as though you were glad about it.

If you weren't then I apologise for 'reading' you wrongly.

The College's pathetic excuse is that taking it down would cost too much. Perhaps they could divert some of the illgotten gains that he left to them to the cost of the removal...

According to one newspaper, the portrait only went up in 2013. I certainly don’t remember one when I was there, in the company of a number of Rhodes Scholars incidentally, in the dim and distant past. The quoted reason, that the Queen represents recent colonial history, seems odd, given that nearly all our colonies have been disposed of during her reign.

The ‘electorate’ would have been just the MCR members.

Is there anyone in history we can be really proud of? do tell....

I don't know... if you were sensitive about colonialism, why would you choose to get an education at one of the most conservative British universities?

I'm getting tired of all this political correctness; I think some of this is over the top.

TBH I'm surprised it is there at all. Seems very odd to have that in a common room at all. Nothing like that in any of my DC unis. In Scotland though.

MaizieD

^As for Oxford students. Not interested in them at all. They can do what they like. Apart from pull Rhodes down.^

Why on earth shouldn't Rhodes go? He's not exactly someone we can be proud of. Removing his statue isn't going to erase him from history. He's in all the history books about that period; he's not going to be redacted from them.

Why should he stay, Talullah?

And why did you choose to omit part of my comment from your quote? Very odd thing to do.

As for Oxford students. Not interested in them at all. They can do what they like. Apart from pull Rhodes down. They've been stopped from doing that apparently.